Stay
by spidersaremykryptonite
Summary: Maybe it's just that the beheaded body in the bathroom, dripping with blood, reminds him of bodies in pieces that dripped red into sand on the other side of the world. Oneshot. Tag to Stepping Stone and The Wrong Side of the Bars.
Cops see a lot of shit, especially in Chicago, especially in units like his, but it's not the same as war. However much reporters talk up gang wars and street violence and shootouts as war and battle, it's not the same kind of brutality, the same kind of violence and death following you around all the time. But some days, he sees things like this, and it feels the same. Or maybe it's just that the beheaded body in the bathroom, dripping with blood, reminds him of bodies in pieces that dripped red into sand on the other side of the world. Whatever the reason, when he pulls up the rear of his team on the way into the house with the long gun, checking in the bathroom on his way past, he feels the familiar punch of breathlessness and a ghost of burning sand brushing his skin before he turns away, leaving the feeling behind to get on with his job.

The feeling catches up with him of course. Once they get back to the district and the adrenaline wears off, he's left with the curling anxiety of memory and possibility in his stomach – memory of the bloody mess of a man splashed across the bathroom, and farther back, the memories of the pieces of enemies left behind in the desert by him and his squad and memories of the broken bodies of his brothers-in-arms; and possibility, the possibility of what would have happened if he'd walked into that apartment. He's been in life threatening situations hundreds of times, spent months living in a constant state of "I could die at any moment," but that doesn't prevent the nauseous feeling swirling around in the pit of his stomach for what could have happened if Erin hadn't…

He looks over at his partner of a month. She's a hell of a cop, a hell of a partner, and a hell of a woman – the kind of woman his mother would have called formidable, 'small but mighty,' the kind of woman, he thought, that his mother would have adored.

He finishes putting away the gun and strides to her side, opening his mouth before he's quite sure what words he's looking for, hesitating a moment.

"I ow you one," he says quietly. She smiles, small and reassuring, and raises a fist to lightly punch his arm.

"That's why you have backup," she says simply, and walks away, leaving Jay to catch his breath and put away the ghosts the beheaded body unleashed.

* * *

Which turns out to be kind of useless, since Voight goes and tears at them again when he calls Jay and Antonio into his office. He's still trying to find his way around with Voight, and he's not quite sure how he stands with regards to his new boss. Regardless, he can't say he blames Voight for chewing him out for almost going into that house. The low burn settling in his stomach has nothing to do with the anger or rebellion usually stirred up by alpha males getting in his face; no, this is guilt and regret and a little bit of self-disgust, because Voight is right. He could have gotten himself and Lindsay killed. He thought he'd gotten past the dangerous recklessness that had gotten him into trouble when he got back from his second tour. He had promised Mouse that he would stop being so careless with his safety. Voight stalks out of the room and Jay takes a deep breath and once again tries to pack away the ghosts.

* * *

The second beheading isn't so bad, because as soon as Jay sees the pry marks on the door, he's kind of expecting it. Not that he doesn't still feel the horrible magnetic draw of his eyes to the blood, but it's easier to stay removed, to keep the ghosts from rattling.

* * *

He's content to ignore the douche making crass comments at Lindsay and trade irritated glances with his partner, until the guy chucks the beer bottle. And he knows that she doesn't need him to defend her from asshats, she's plenty capable of doing it herself, but he still hasn't fully been able to shake the sick anxious curling in the pit of his stomach, the bitter taste that the beheading and his stupidity left in his mouth. So he pulls off his gun and badge, handing them to her, and takes a few steps towards the guy. Mouse would tell him to walk away. To put his gun and badge back on and get in the car. Mouse would tell him that this is not a healthy way to deal with his problems. But Mouse isn't here, and there's nothing Jay can do about the guilt and the memories stirred up, but this is something that he can do. So he puts on a fake friendly tone and calls over the bottle-throwing guy.

"Hey, come here a sec."

And it does feel good, to knock that guy on his ass, to have someone to hit and a reason to hit them. And the look of slight fear and humiliation on the guy's face is satisfying, and for a minute the only thing he feels is exhilaration. After that, the feeling stays away for the rest of the day – which is probably exactly the reason Mouse worries about him doing things like that.

* * *

He should have expected the question from Burgess, really. She's young and enthusiastic and he can't blame her. It's exactly the kind of question he could see himself asking someone if he had never been to war. But still, when the words "Did you ever see anything like you did today?" come tumbling out of her mouth, the feelings that had been quelled by taking down that dick earlier rush back in, and he has to remind himself to breathe, has to force himself to smile at Burgess' embarrassed backtracking, to shrug like it's nothing, like he can brush it off. But he glances over at Erin, who is staring back at him, lips pulled into a rueful kind of smile, and she holds his gaze, steady and sympathetic. Not for the first time, he wonders how much she sees.

* * *

He's doing fine the next day until the Lieutenant shows up and tells them that he's here about the car, and an ominous anxiety unfurls, justified moments later by Antonio's panicked voice on the radio, and he feels sick. He doesn't know Jules well, but she was in fact the most welcoming member of the team when he first joined. She had shaken his hand with a warm smile and she was kind and funny and open. But he doesn't get to stick around to find out if she's going to be okay, or to support Erin, who he knows is closer to Jules. Instead he runs to the car and slams the gas pedal and a horrible part of his mind is remembering the conversation he had with Lindsay yesterday – _You driving all the time, I'm not down with that. Look, I feel like a house husband_ – and the sick twisting feeling in his gut intensifies just a little. When Ruzek takes off chasing Pulpo, he charges down the street, down through the alley, and makes it there just in time to take a flying leap, talking Pulpo into a pile of garbage bags. The punch to the face is probably not really necessary, but having the man who shot Jules under his hands makes anger and disgust writhe under his skin and he can't help it. Only one punch though, and he reigns himself in, cuffing Pulpo and heaving the man to his feet, as Ruzek jogs up beside him. They get Pulpo back to the station, and Jay leads him to the cage, his skin crawling every second that he's touching him. He can't say he blames Antonio for attacking Pulpo, and half of him wants to leave Antonio to it, but the sensible part of him grabs for his friend, pulling him away.

* * *

He finds out that Antonio's son is missing first, which ignites a sympathetic panic in his bones, and a dull ache at the reminder of how horrendous human beings are sometimes. He finds out that Jules didn't make it second, which weighs him down with an exhausted grief. But Jules is gone and there's no changing that, while Diego is still out there, and they can still save him, so he puts the grief away, and focuses on the fire burning to get Antonio's little boy home unscathed.

He's silent when he and Erin get in the car on their way to find Ernesto, staring broodingly out the window. He's a bit surprised when Erin starts talking. He listens quietly, as she talks about Diego, and then she veers off towards Jules.

"I used to think that cops under Voight were invincible. And then Jules died. I was holding her hand…"

He looks over, watching her in profile and trying not to think about the times when he's been in that position, trying not to remember the horrible moment when a hand goes slack in yours and all that's left is the redness of their blood on your palms, trying not to see the faces of Andy, of the Ranger whose name he never knew but whose wife's name was Moira, and whose daughter's name was Alina, of the civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, the little girl who took a stray bullet to the chest… It pains him to think that this is now a feeling that Erin knows. And then she tosses a quick glance in his direction.

"As a soldier," she begins, and his stomach twists just for a second because he can guess what's coming next, and he doesn't want her to ask. But she goes on anyway. "How did you deal with it?"

There's more than one way to answer the question. There's even more than one way to answer the question truthfully, and he pauses, trying to figure out what to say. He hates it when people ask him things like this, but like with Burgess at Molly's, he can't blame her for it.

"Generally, I-" he begins quietly, pausing to try and order his words, but he's still trying to push away other thoughts as he glances away towards the window, "take it out on those who didn't deserve it."

It wouldn't have been any less true to say something like he tries to remember that they died protecting others, and they died to protect him, and he does what he can to honour that, and another day, in another situation, talking to someone else, he probably would have said that instead. But it's not another day, it's this day, this situation, and he's talking to Erin, and somehow what he said seems like a more honest answer.

He doesn't look back at Erin – he doesn't want to see her reaction to his confession. She doesn't speak, letting silence fill the car as he stares out at the blurring landscape.

* * *

He doesn't know what to think when he sees the file, a very different looking Erin Lindsay scowling up at him from the picture. Part of him wants to pretend he never saw it, remembering the sarcastic remark he got last time he tried to ask about the strange relationship between Erin and Voight. The other part, the part that ultimately wins out, desperately wants to know, and also kind of feels like it would be kind of a crap thing to keep this to himself instead of telling her honestly that he saw the file. So he does. Except then he does the stupid thing of asking if Voight turned her out, which was definitely the wrong thing to say in an already volatile situation, and ends with her pissed off, and him feeling like an idiot on top of everything else.

* * *

His breath catches when Voight flips open the knife and hands it to Antonio, muttering in his ear "Do what you gotta do." He doesn't move, but the longer Antonio lets the knife hover above Ernesto's eye, the more Voight yells, the more tense he becomes, gaze flickering over his three teammates in the alley uncomfortably. He shifts in place, swallowing past a tightness in his throat and a dryness in his mouth. He can't say anything, because he understands the motivation, he does, and he can't do anything against Voight like this, but he really wishes that he were somewhere else right now, and not standing in this alley watching a man he respects deciding whether or not to become a torturer. Because he's met torturers, and has the scars and the nightmares to prove it – _now is not the time to think about that –_ and maybe in a way he is one already too, for the things he's done – _don't think about that either –_ but then, thank god, Antonio throws the knife away and he can suddenly breathe a little easier as Antonio hauls Ernesto to his feet.

* * *

He finds out after the fact that Antonio decided to do things Voight's way after all, and he swallows and sighs and knows that if Antonio gets his son back unharmed, Antonio will think that it's worth it. And maybe it is, who is he to judge? He doesn't know how far it went before Ernesto decided to talk, maybe it didn't go far at all, maybe Antonio will be spared the guilt and nightmares. God knows he lived in the grey long enough to understand crossing lines for the sake of someone or something important – he just thought that when he left the Rangers and joined the police force, things would be a little more black and white.

* * *

It scares the shit out of him when things go sideways and he doesn't have a shot, can't even really see what's going on. Nothing worse for a sniper than being blind. The support beam is blocking his view, but there was nowhere else he could have used as a sniper perch, so he's stuck, stomach churning feeling useless while Antonio's son is being held, and his partner is on her own in a bus with a man with a gun and he can't cover her properly, can't have his partner's back – _that's why you have backup_ – only he isn't giving her backup, he isn't keeping her safe. He yanks the rifle off its perch and runs after Voight, but he's not even at the scene and it's over, and Erin's safe, Diego's safe and he was useless. He stands by the bus, watching Erin walk away with Voight before turning and walking to the truck to put away the gun still slung over his shoulder, frustrated and angry and relieved.

* * *

He hates funerals. Which is probably not at all unusual, for obvious reasons. But he hates them with a passion, and he hates the heavy stiffness of his dress blues, like he hates the heavy stiffness of his dress uniform for the Rangers, and he keeps the two of them packed away in the same place in his closet where he never has to look at them. He knows guys who love their dress uniforms, both in the blues and the Ranger green, and they like how it makes them feel impressive, feel sharp, makes girls turn their heads to watch them, and Jay vaguely remembers feeling something like that the first time he put on the Rangers uniform, before he deployed on his first tour, but now the uniform just feels too much like death and grief made physical, and standing at attention in line with the Intelligence unit feels just like the salute of so many other funerals and he can hardly breathe.

Voight brings them all inside after, and Jay pulls off his cap, and shrugs out of his jacket right away, and can't wait to take the uniform off all together, and joins the rest of the unit standing in a messy circle to listen to what Voight has to say.

It's a good speech. One that reminds him of the speeches his commanding officers gave in Afghanistan. When Voight says "The police standing next to you are your family," he can't help but think of a different family, of brothers he lost, and the one who dragged him home, the one who got him here, and the one he's dragging home in return, the one he'll call tonight and share a beer with while watching the game and he'll tell him how hard this case has been and Mouse will listen quietly and offer up gentle understanding, and Mouse will somehow make it easier like he always does. Now, he can't help but look over at Erin, who looks back and meets his gaze, and he thinks that it would be really kind of wonderful if this unit could become like the kind of family that he has with Mouse.

"If you're in, stay here with me."

They all stay.

* * *

 **AN: Just some babbling that happened while re-watching the first two episodes. Review! Tell me what you think!**


End file.
